£100m grants for floundering NI businesses to be in place by Monday – over a month after being unveiled

A grant scheme offering £25,000 to each firm which matches the government’s criteria had first been announced by Rishi Sunak on March 17.

It is estimated that about 4,000 firms will be eligible for the grants in Northern Ireland.

Aodhan Connolly, director of the Northern Ireland Retail Consortium (the Ulster-based wing of the British Retail Consortium), hailed the pending arrival of the grant money.

But he said that the delay in making it available had hurt businesses – and that it must never be repeated.

Mr Connolly, whose organisation represents about 90 major retailers including Sainsbury’s, Asda, Argos and B&Q, told the News Letter: “It’s great this has finally come down the line.

“It’s been a long time coming, and we’ve yet to see whether or not it’s going to be enough to keep some retailers level.

“We know civil servants and ministers are doing their best. But this is make-or-break for a lot of retailers.

“We need it now. The delays can’t happen again. If there’s more support coming, we need to be very fleet of foot to deliver it. It’s made a hard situation harder.”

He cited like-for-like retail sales figures, which showed March had the worst sales drop for that month since records began in 1995.

Despite a notable increase in sales in the first half of the month due to stockpiling, the last two weeks of March saw sales plummet by a whopping 27%.

Whilst these are UK figures, Mr Connolly said Northern Ireland’s own experience is broadly in line with that.

As to when he feels it would be appropriate to begin lifting restrictions, he said that is “above my pay grade”.

Rishi Sunak said last month that the £25,000 grant applies to firms in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors.

They must have a rateable value between £15,000 and £51,000. Another similar scheme offering £10,000 grants to all businesses which are eligible for the Small Business Rate Relief Scheme (covering about 27,000 Northern Irish firms) has been in place since late March.

For details on both schemes, go to: www.nibusinessinfo.co.uk/content/coronavirus-business-support-grant-schemes

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